[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 63 (Wednesday, May 8, 1996)]
[House]
[Page H4533]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                   DOES ICWA REALLY PROTECT CHILDREN?

  (Ms. PRYCE asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend her remarks.)
  Ms. PRYCE. Mr. Speaker, the Indian Child Welfare Act has been 
misapplied and distorted in recent years, hurting countless children.
  Consider the story I heard from a mother in Alaska. The little girl 
who is now her adoptive daughter was placed in foster care at the age 
of 7 months due to the Indian Child Welfare Act. After a year, the baby 
was placed with a biological grandmother, a native American, with the 
understanding that her two sons, both convicted child sex abusers, move 
out and live elsewhere.
  Well, they never left and the baby was found in a compromised 
situation, upon which the grandmother returned the child to the youth 
services with no explanations and no belongings. Only after this 
horrifying ordeal and after the native community failed to find a safe 
native home was she placed with this Native Alaskan couple who 
eventually adopted her.
  The adoptive mother writes to me, ``We are lucky. Our daughter was 
placed in only five foster homes before she found a family that was 
suitable to the tribe.'' There are many other children who are being 
kept from loving homes for 3, 4 and 5 years awaiting tribal action.
  Mr. Speaker, this is a native American speaking. She knows ICWA needs 
reform. She knows firsthand.

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